Laugh
Lines
“I've
enjoyed every age I've been and each has had its own individual
merit. Every laugh line, every scar, is a badge I wear to show I've
been present, the inner rings of my personal tree trunk that I
display proudly for all to see. Nowadays, I don't want a 'perfect'
face and body; I want to wear the life I've lived.”
Pat
Benatar
Do you ever study
people's faces? Folks you don't know and probably will never see
again. I like to study faces in restaurants and airports, and make up
stories about the life that produced them. We look at the
faces of children, especially babies, to gauge their mood—tired,
hungry, upset, angry, content, happy—typically, their eyes tell it
all. But, we do this less with adults. We tend to look at their
mouths, pay attention to words, and lose track of the rest of the
human being.
I watched an interview
recently with a woman whose child had been killed in one of our
random, senseless acts of violence. Her face had been rearranged by
surgery and injections to resemble an attractive face, but her eyes
were absolutely flat. The sorrow resided there, and no amount of
cosmetic surgery could remove it. Perhaps looking in the mirror had
become too painful for her; she wanted someone else's face to appear
there. I understand that, don't you?
Pat Benatar writes about
her life as a performer, and how much she enjoys being an older
woman, now in her 60's, who is still singing. When she started in the
music business, women were not considered valuable after about their
30th birthday. She and other women of her time, like Joan
Baez and Aretha Franklin, broke the mold of what it means to be a
successful female singer. She refuses to alter her face to
accommodate the industry's pressure to be ever young and attractive.
I respect that.
Whether we are male or
female, the whole business of loving where we are, and who we are,
depends heavily upon our ability to accept ourselves exactly as
we are. Given that there is still an enormous bias toward young and
attractive, this is far easier when we are actively involved in life.
By that I mean engaged on a day-to-day basis with activities and
people we love, that help us to feel worthwhile and productive. We
think less about ourselves and how we measure up, and more about what
we're doing and who we're doing it with. We become invested in
authenticity on every level. We wear our faces proudly as a
reflection of the life we've lived—and that's a very good thing.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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